When I referenced that I needed some baking supplies in Cyprus, little did I know that I would need them sooner to make some cupcakes for Piano Man’s birthday at school.

I tried to buy 24 cupcakes at a local bakery (see the post on Zorbas vs. Ariston), but after checking with two local shops (Ariston and New York Sweets), it was overpriced and much too fancy for young children.

So I set off on a mission to buy the following:

– cupcake pans & measuring cups

– cake mix

– frosting

I was fortunate to find Betty Crocker cookie mix at Alphamega many weeks ago. I thought I would try this out before moving onto cupcakes.

After following directions, the cookies turned out fine.

Making the batter for the cupcakes wasn’t the hard part. I just had to do a little conversion from cups to mL.

The oven was more of a challenge. The numbers on the dial must have been at Celsius, which was something new to me. But that wasn’t the hard part. It was turning on the oven.

I flipped the switch. Check. I had to turn a black knob to turn on the timer; otherwise, it wouldn’t work. And then I had to decide which way to distribute the heat in the oven.

Overall, the cupcakes turned out fine as long as I checked it every few minutes, since I didn’t know how to work the timer.

And after finding out that they don’t sell premade frosting from Betty Crocker. I decided to use Nutella as my frosting of choice.

Then I used M&M’s to write Happy Birthday <Piano Man>. Voila!

Baking was like riding a bicycle or driving on the left side of the road for me. You get on, and it’s a little wobbly at first. But once I made my first batch, I felt like I could do it again. And sure enough, making the cupcakes was not as scary or daunting as the first time baking cookies.

Yes, I know I need to work on baking from scratch. But I am working on baby steps. Baby steps.